When is more Harry Potter too much Harry Potter?
Coming as no real surprise, an eighth Harry Potter book rose from the cauldron of J. K. Rowling's publicists on Wednesday. It sent the Potter fandom into a real frenzy of excitement to step back into the world of the Boy Who Lived and see where his life takes him.
However, there are other curmudgeons out there who think that enough is enough. They say the wizarding world stories have all been told and that Rowling should probably spend her time on other pursuits.
In the spirit of dueling, we put together one die-hard Harry fan who wants Pottermore, Andrea Romano, and one lover of the books but hater of that "Cursed Child," Peter Allen Clark. With wands at the ready, they tried to capture that winged snitch of truth through the art of debate.
J.K. Rowling can do literally anything she wants
Andrea: I am not joking. She has more money than the Queen. She wrote a series about boy wizards and yet we still listen to her when she tweets about foreign policy. If she wanted to overthrow the monarchy, the papacy and all the world leaders and dub herself Super-Pope-Queen-Emperor-President of the world, I’m pretty sure we’d let her because the collective Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook followers that she has makes up could make a small army (a Dumbledore’s Army, if you will). And we’d fight to the death for our Super-Pope-Queen-Emperor-President of the world. Have you ever tried to start an argument about Harry Potter on reddit? It’ll never end. I had a fight about wizard money on Twitter and it took up half my morning. That was just with one person. We can’t stop, and it’s because we are loyal. And she knows it.
Peter: I disagree. Her status only means that she should take greater care of what she releases into the world. Let’s be clear: This is not a new book. This is an adaptation of a stage play. Not even that. It’s just the script. This is not a full-fledged return to the wizarding world. This is dialogue. Nothing against theater, but it does limit the story one wants to tell. Live theater doesn’t really allow for many, say, spells, creatures, potion effects or any of the many, many outlandish things that happen in HP’s world.Let’s be clear: this is not a new book. This is an adaptation of a stage play.
I was moderately fine with Rowling having wizards treading the boards, even though it means she lied about being down with the series. I thought it was like a little spinoff experiment, but unveiling it as ‘the eighth Harry Potter’ book just seems very tacky.
As they say in every Spider Man reboot, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” Rowling should learn by Uncle Ben’s words and treat her extremely influential position with great care. That does not include just throwing out a book just because, ‘Hey, I’ve wrote a play. Might as well make it another book!’ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Do you know what happened to Uncle Ben when Peter Parker ignored him, Andrea? He died. J. K. Rowling is killing Uncle Ben.
Rebuttal
Andrea: Are you saying stage plays are not books? Because I have a DUMBLEDORE’S ARMY of theater nerds who would disagree. Who says a stage play is limiting? Spells, creatures, potions -- all of these can be described in a script. Let’s go back to how scripting began, shall we? In the old days (let’s say, during the Greeks and the Elizabethans), scripts were bare-bones (kind of like the way you’re imagining right now). Only dialogue. It was when the first production (first production EVER to produce said play) brought in a dramaturg that things like room descriptions, blocking or even character descriptions were added in. BY the dramaturg. Who is to say Cursed Child won’t have these details added in? And I don’t know about you, I consider a play to be literature. HELLO SHAKESPEARE.
On that note, we want J.K. to keep going
Andrea: You have an unpopular opinion here, Peter. I’m sorry. But we love our beautiful moon goddess J.K. Rowling and we must have more of her precious, precious words to consume or else we will shrivel up and die. As long as J.K. is here, we want her to speak. Why else would we pay such close attention to her Twitter account?
There are people on this Earth still walking around because of her words.
Fact of the matter is, her series touched millions of people who related to her characters. Some people would go so far as so say her books saved their lives. THEIR LIVES, Peter! Why wouldn’t you want more of that? There are people on this Earth still walking around because of her WORDS. That is profound. And who knows how many more people she can touch with even more material. Her books are like a warm blanket, and blankets are even better when they get bigger and fluffier. We do that by keeping the world alive.
Peter: Nope. First, she lied. While she did hint at more books, she explicitly told Daniel Radcliffe that there would be no further books with Harry Potter. She lied to him, she lied to all of us. How can we trust her with anything at this point?
Second, many people want her to stop. Her Twitter usage has become the bane of everyone writing entertainment news. “J. K. tweeted again,” someone will say. Everyone then groans.
Third, the sad fact of the matter is that very few artists can duplicate their creative genius time and time again. People age. Inspiration fails. Stories grow thin and repetitive.
I am very glad that Harry Potter meant so much to the people it touched. Her writing another book does not take that away. Rather it has the high probability of missing the high mark set by seven other books.
Did you see The Who’s performance during the 2010 Super Bowl? Did you see seasons 5-9 of The Office? Did you watch TRON: Legacy? It’s better to burn out than fade away, and more times than not, it’s better to let a cohesive body of work alone.
Rebuttal
Andrea: But Cursed Child isn’t only the work of J.K. Rowling. It is also written by Jack Thorne and John Tiffany. Just like the Star Wars series, it’s not solely resting in her glorious, beautiful hands. Other people (but not TOO MANY) are bringing their creativity to it. And I’ll give you that there are too many “J.K. tweeted” stories. But that’s our (the media’s) problem. Not her’s.
The Wizarding World is still unfinished
Andrea: What happens when you stop asking questions? You die, Peter. You just die. Harry Potter fans are an inquisitive bunch and we can’t just read a book, put it back on the shelf and go, “Welp, that was fun.” No. We must delve deeper. What is up with wizarding money? It makes no sense. As much as we predict and assume about it, we can never be right.
This is how she quiets our troubled minds.
Never. Not until she tells us we’re right. And that can’t happen without more books. Or an encyclopedia. Or just MORE material to consume and fill our brains with. This is how she quiets our troubled minds. Is your mind not troubled by this? Harry Potter was rich and detailed, but with every detail, you must answer for 10 more details. It’s a never-ending cycle. J.K. Rowling will be working for the rest of her life.
Peter: Where does that end? Do you want any number of books on economics dealing with how the Gringotts Bank indirectly fueled backhanded dealings at the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary, ultimately leading to Hagrid’s hatching of Norbert? Actually, that sounds kind of cool.
Crap.
Rebuttal
Andrea: HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!
Peter: But no, a line has to be drawn with the questions. It is an author’s responsibility to tell a story, not to give an audience every single answer to every single question they have (even though that seems like what Rowling does every day on Twitter).
Perhaps other authors could write wizarding world books similar to the Star Wars fandom. But the story of Harry Potter had an ending. It’s over. Stories should end. And this series already did.
The Epilogue in Book 7 sucked
Andrea: End of point. We need a do-over.
Peter: Yes, Andrea, it was very, very bad. But that’s not why we’re here.
Could that not have been the first sign that Rowling’s grasp on her Harry Potter creativity has slipped? Might she be tuning up to join The Who on the stage of the 2010 Super Bowl halftime show?
But more pointedly, that’s life. Stories end in unconvincing, dumb ways. Even though I gnashed my teeth while reading it, it took nothing away from my sincerely great time reading the previous works.
Let stories live. They don’t need to be updated, amended or expanded. Every attempt at elongating Harry Potter past its already voluminous size just smells like a cheap cash-in.
Rebuttal
Andrea: Yes, it is why we’re here. We should always strive for perfection (because this is fiction, not life) and we were left with something disappointing. It shouldn’t end there. It wasn’t a sign that she slipped, it was a sign that it just wasn’t the right time to end it.
Nothing is new
Andrea: Even Shakespeare recycled old Greek plays, updated them a little, and slapped his name on them, OK? There is nothing new or original. Everything is just a different or updated version of something else. Or a reboot. Or a sequel. Even Harry Potter is an archetypical story. So why not do a continuation of it, if it’s something you love? It’s that better than seeing a remake of a classic movie that didn’t need to be remade? They remade Psycho, and it sucked. Did that need to happen? No. This is a BRAND NEW book, that happens to be set in a universe we are familiar with. Does that make it unoriginal? Not to us.
Peter: Do you know what would be new, Andrea? An artist sticking to their word and understanding when it’s time to let a project continue on without adding to it. That would be something new. That would be something brave and new and Rowling will never do it.
If she’s such a fan of recycling, go out and recycle something else. There are plenty of genres — military fiction, hard sci-fi, cook books, Penthouse letters.
Go, Rowling. Do something else.
Rebuttal
Andrea: She has, did you read The Casual Vacancy?
Our economy demands it
Andrea: Open your eyes! Like it or not, we live in a capitalist society, and capitalism demands more Harry Potter -- because it drives commerce. J.K. Rowling can express her creativity all she wants and makes money off of it -- that’s good for her. But also, Harry Potter fans spend their hard earned cash to buy REAL BOOKS (hardback books even, from REAL BOOK STORES, not AMAZON) to put that money back into the economy. A lot of Harry Potter fans are also book store lovers. We’re not going to buy Cursed Child on a damn e-reader. Come on. We’re helping out small businesses here. Don’t you want to help the small businesses? Who’s side are you on?
Peter: Print book sales are actually up in the past few years, even without the help of Rowling pushing Potter on the precious muggles of the world. So, I think mom and pop are doing pretty well with their stores.And like you said in your first point, Rowling has more money than all religions’ gods combined. So, she certainly doesn’t need any more of those sweet galleons lining her sable-lined pockets.
Our economy needs innovation.
Our economy needs innovation. It needs reinvention. Do you know what happens to companies that don’t find new ways to sell themselves to the public? They fail. Apple didn’t put out the iPod and think, ‘We’re good! Nothing more needed!’ ... No, it carved out new product lines, new markets, new inventions. Learn from Apple, Rowling.
Rebuttal
Andrea: The only way to help Mom and Pop stores to continue their upswing is with big pushes like this. To YOUR point: we can’t just leave well enough alone.
Reading is fun!
Andrea: Another tidbit about HP fans: we love to read! Reading is our jam! And J.K. Rowling gives us fat stacks of books to lug around on trains, planes and automobiles that will keep us occupied for hours (or at least a weekend, because we are RAVENOUS BEASTS who must finish the books IMMEDIATELY). If you’re not catching my drift, I will defer you to this man.
Peter: I mean, I can’t really argue with this, despite the ‘ravenous beasts’ joke. I love reading and I want everyone to have new and great things to read. I just worry, worry, worry that if we go back to the Harry Potter well, we will only pull up an empty bucket.
Rebuttal
Andrea: There’s nothing wrong with reading more material from a rich, detailed universe that is creative and special and we enjoy. What should we read? Twilight?
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Topics Harry Potter JK Rowling
